Dems Plan To Investigate Oil Companies For Questioning Global Warming

Democratic lawmakers are doubling down on their investigationsinto those who don’t toe the line on global warming bydemanding records from oil companies they allege are part of aconspiracy “spreading disinformation about climatescience.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained an email from staffersof Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu of California and Peter Welch ofVermont. In the email, Lieu and Welch ask other lawmakers to signthe letter demanding records from oil companies they say are“hiding and spreading disinformation to both the public andlawmakers alike concerning the science of climatechange.”

“The American people deserve answers from the fossil fuelcorporations about their actions to massively deceive the public inregards to climate science,” wrote in their pitch toDemocrats.

So far, only 18 out of the 188 Democrats in the House havesigned onto the letter, including Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona andsix others who went after scientists skeptical of man-madeglobal warming earlier this year. Now they are going after oilcompanies that donâ€™t tow the line on globalwarming.

“Given that only a handful of members are willing to puttheir names on this letter, it is clear that this effort is fallingflat on its face,” a former Capitol Hill staffer familiarwith the matter told TheDCNF.

Democratsâ€™ effort to launch a congressionalinvestigation of Exxon comes as world leaders are preparing to meetin Paris for a United Nations climate summit. Countries areexpected to sign onto a successor agreement to the KyotoProtocol.

Exxon opponents hope vilifying the company will help buildpublic support for regulations to curb carbon dioxideemissions.

Exxon Mobil has been the main target of such attacks, andDemocratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and HillaryClinton have backed a federal investigation of thecompany.

“It appears that Exxon knew its product was causing harmto the public, and spent millions of dollars to obfuscate the factsin the public discourse,” Sanders wrote in a letter Attorney General LorettaLynch last month. “The information that has come to lightabout Exxon’s past activities raises potentially seriousconcerns that should be investigated.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a left-wing environmentalgroup, released a report claiming there’s a “coordinated campaign of deception” onclimate science led by “ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips,BP, Shell, Peabody Energy, and other members of the fossil fuelindustry.”

“UCS uncovered many internal company documents confirminga massive coordinated campaign of deception conducted by theindustry to deceive the public of climate science that even theirown scientists confirmed,”Â reads the lettersigned by 18 House Democrats.

“What we have understood from the outsetâ€” and something which over-the-top activistsfail to acknowledge — is that climate change is an enormouslycomplicated subject,” Kenneth Cohen, Exxon’s headspokesman wrote in a blog post. “The climate andmankindâ€™s connection to it are among the mostcomplex topics scientists have ever studied, with a seeminglyendless number of variables to consider over an incredibly longtimespan.”

Exxon has also worked with the Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) since its inception in 1988.